A Scholar of Magics

by Caroline Stevermer

  “What kind of a scholar of magic needs a lock on his door?” Jane’s disapproval was clear. “A very ordinary lock at that.”

  “Was it forced open?”

  “Judging from the marks here, yes.” Jane traced the gouged wood and scratched metal. “It wasn’t locked. Someone didn’t even bother to try the knob first, just slid a knife blade in and pushed.”

  “He must have been in a hurry.” Lambert started picking up papers and stacking them in no particular order. It would be easier to clean the place up once the floor was clear.

  Jane studied the room with sharp-eyed interest. “Whoever works here is a devil for armillary spheres.” She flicked a speck of dust from one of the nested rings of the largest armillary sphere and set the gleaming metal into silent motion. “Is this an orrery?” She moved along to the mechanical model of the solar system. She touched the crank and glanced up at Lambert. “Shall I give us a little extra spin?”

  Lambert said, “It’s an inaccurate model. The earth isn’t really in the center. The sun is. Earth and the other planets spin around it.”

  “Just like Glasscastle, in other words.” Jane moved the crank gently until the polished wooden planets eased into motion around the ivory orb representing the earth. Old as it was, the device had been well cared for. The mechanism made only the softest of clicks and whirrs to accompany the stately motion of the model.

  “What?”

  Jane watched the planets slow. “Glasscastle stays unchanged while England spins around it, the British Empire spins around England, and the rest of the world spins around the British Empire.” The planets stopped.

  Lambert tried to decide if Jane were serious or not. “That’s an exaggerated view of the importance of England, don’t you think?”

  “But not of Glasscastle?” From Jane’s expression, she was only serious about hearing Lambert’s reaction.

  Lambert hesitated. “Well, Glasscastle is part of England, after all.”

  “No, it isn’t. Not really.” Jane gave the crank a more vigorous turn and the planets took up their smooth clockwork dance again. “The Fellows of Glasscastle ransomed it from the Crown at the Dissolution. Paid for the cost of the lead on the roofs and settled down in comfort and privacy to master the theory and practice of magic.”

  “They aren’t just working for themselves.” Lambert wondered what Fell would make of Jane’s cynical reading of Glasscastle’s history. Mincemeat? Or would he have an even more satirical version? Probably. “They swear fealty to the Crown.”

  “Diplomatic to a fault. They give each new monarch a fresh bit of invention as a coronation gift. A microscope here, a telescope there. The Fellows of Glasscastle are loyal only to Glasscastle.”

  “That’s not true. The Fellows of Glasscastle devote themselves to the advancement of human understanding.”

  “Oh, yes. Of course.” Jane’s attention was entirely on the motion of the planetary model. She seemed amused by it. “Did you say a friend of yours works in this room?”

  “Nicholas Fell. He’s going to be tolerably cross about this. He doesn’t like anyone disturbing his work and I’ve probably set him back six months just tidying up his papers.”

  “What is Fell working on? Do you know? Our friend in the bowler didn’t visit this room for nothing.” Jane lost interest in the orrery and leaned forward to make a cursory inspection of the papers spread across the desk. “Is there anything that should be here that isn’t?”

  “I don’t know.” Lambert frowned at Jane. “Can we be sure that’s what really happened? The man comes in here, throws things on the floor, and leaves in a big hurry? Even if that’s what he really did, why? What was he doing here?”

  “Is there anything here that shouldn’t be?” Jane seated herself behind the desk and began working through the papers in earnest. “What is your friend’s field of study? To judge from this, it looks like he makes clocks.”

  Mindful of the plans stuffed into his pocket, Lambert decided to ignore Jane’s first question for the time being. “History of magic. But for the past few months he’s abandoned his thesis completely to study the measurement of time.”

  “What kind of work is he doing?” Jane looked puzzled. “Physics?”

  Lambert shrugged. “Just—time. He’s interested in it.”

  The orrery ran down again and Jane frowned at the arrangement of the planets without seeming to see it. “That man in the bowler was looking for something—or he found it.”

  Lambert looked again at the surrounding mess and winced at the thought of what Fell would have to say. “We’d better report this.”

  “You’re right. I shouldn’t have delayed you. I’ll wait here until you find the proper authority.” Jane went back to her careful examination of the papers.

  Lambert hesitated, then gave up on any attempt at tact. “Please come with me. I don’t think Fell would approve of me leaving you alone with his papers.”

  Jane looked surprised. “Why? What harm could I do?”

  “No harm. Not that.” Inspiration struck Lambert. “But this way, we can be witnesses for each other’s good behavior.”

  “Do you think me capable of anything less?” Jane’s words held a distinct edge. “What are you implying?”

  “I’m not trying to imply anything.” Lambert settled for absolute honesty. “If I leave you here alone, I think you might snoop.”

  Jane bristled. “Oh, do you?”

  “Forgive my bluntness, Miss Brailsford, but I try never to underestimate a woman. Particularly not an Englishwoman.”

  Lambert was perplexed by Jane’s sweet smile in response. “Very well, Mr. Lambert. In that case, I concede that I am quite capable of snooping. Let us go and find the proper authority together.”

  It took Lambert some time to track down the right person to inform of the disturbance in Fell’s study. The young man responsible for the reading room sent to someone with more authority, who sent for someone else. Finally Russell, one of the senior Fellows, arrived and took a look at the place.

  “To be honest, it doesn’t look much worse than usual.” Russell poked at a stack of papers. “Fell can make a formal complaint if he notices anything is missing. Leave it alone until then.”

  “What about the man in the bowler hat?” Lambert asked.

  “If you see him again, ask him to come in and answer a few questions. Not much we can do unless he returns.” Russell ushered them back out to the corridor. “It was very conscientious of you to report this.” To Lambert, his tone made it plain he thought Lambert and Jane were a pair of officious fussbudgets intent on making a mountain out of a molehill.

  Lambert noted with interest that Jane seemed to interpret Russell’s tone just the way he had, for she looked peeved as Russell escorted them out of the archive and left them on the front steps.

  “That’s that, then.” Jane surveyed the prospect before her with no sign of enthusiasm. “Vigilant Glasscastle at its finest.”

  “That’s a sour look, Jane.” Robert Brailsford hailed his sister cheerfully as he and Adam Voysey joined them on the steps. “Lemons for lunch, was it?”

  “I haven’t had anything for lunch.” Jane brightened considerably at the mere thought. “Is it already time for lunch?”

  Robert greeted Lambert, and said to Jane, “I see you’ve found a more congenial guide to squire you through the place. I might have guessed you would.”

  Lambert hadn’t noticed the resemblance between Jane and her brother until he saw them side by side. Their coloring was not dissimilar, but the set of the head and the line of the jaw clearly marked them as kin. Beside Vice Chancellor Voysey’s lean height, Robert Brailsford seemed stocky, compact yet not unathletic. In Jane, economy of build turned to grace.

  Jane’s attention was all on her brother, and most of it was reproachful. “You forgot me, didn’t you?”

  Robert did not hesitate. “I did. Completely and utterly. Jane, may I present the new Vice Chancellor of Glasscastle and Pro
vost of Holythorn, Adam Voysey? Adam, allow me to present my sister Jane Brailsford, a scholar of Greenlaw.”

  Voysey’s dignity came to the fore. Jane might have been a duchess, such was Voysey’s courtesy. Lambert watched with reluctant admiration. As Vice Chancellor, Voysey spoke for all of Glasscastle. He was a busy man. Yet Jane might have been the only person in the world, the way Voysey treated her. Bearing like that could never be learned. It was innate courtesy improved by years of polish.

  Under Voysey’s admiring eye, Jane’s mood seemed to improve. She returned compliment for compliment, saying nothing in particular, yet saying it with elegance and poise.

  “And you, Samuel,” Voysey said at last. “What of you? Perishing with hunger, I’ve no doubt?”

  Lambert had long since grown used to Voysey’s informality toward him. It had been Voysey’s idea to recruit the best possible marksman and he seemed to view Lambert as a kind of honorary younger brother. The advantage of such informality was that Lambert could be honest. “It has been a long time since breakfast.”

  “I think, if we devote ourselves to the quest, we might find something to sustain us. Now that Lord Fyvie and Mr. Wiston have returned to their native heath, my time is my own again, thank goodness. Will you be my guest, Miss Brailsford? This time of year, the cooks at Holythorn do an extremely good smothered quail on Tuesdays.”

  For an instant, a pert rejoinder seemed to tremble on Jane’s lips. Lambert could almost see the thoughts move behind Jane’s changeable face as she considered an assortment of replies. Whatever the temptation, good manners won out. With decorum, she accepted Voysey’s invitation and the four of them adjourned to the common room of Voysey’s college to dine. Lambert was surprised at the small but distinct pang of regret he felt. Now he would never know what sort of saucy remark Jane had been about to make to Voysey.

  Jane tried not to look peeved, but inwardly she was seething as Voysey and Robin bore her off with Lambert in their wake.

  It had been forethought, planning, patience, and a smattering of luck that brought Jane to the gates of Glasscastle in time to be waiting there when Lambert passed. To have her campaign sidetracked by her brother, of all people, made her want to swear.

  To get Lambert talking about Fell had been well worth the time spent in admiration of Glasscastle’s—admittedly admirable—architecture. To see Fell’s study had been an unlooked-for benefit, and to be first on the scene to find the disruption there was as intriguing as it was alarming. She had intended to get Lambert to herself again as soon as the authorities were located and dealt with. To be forced to become an official guest again, officially escorted and officially patronized, was all the more annoying since it dashed her hopes of learning more about Fell from the man who seemed, so far, to know him best.

  At the common room table, where the food was every bit as good as Vice Chancellor Voysey had promised, Jane found herself engaged in conversation by Voysey and James Porteous, a Senior Fellow of mathematics. Porteous was older than either Voysey or her brother by at least fifteen years and his gravity of manner was proportional.

  “You will forgive me, Voysey,” Porteous decreed, “for monopolizing the young lady. You take it for granted that we may share hospitality with a lady. To me, a member of a more sheltered generation, it has the charm of the exotic.”

  Jane caught Lambert’s eye. “I’m not the only exotic guest, surely. You have Mr. Lambert among you every day.”

  Lambert looked mildly disgusted to be brought to Porteous’s attention. “I’m not as exotic as all that.”

  Jane wondered if Lambert’s response was distaste for attention in general or Porteous’s attention in particular. She suspected it might be the latter.

  “No comparison at all, dear fellow,” Porteous agreed. “Where have you taken Miss Brailsford? I trust you let her fully admire the beauties of St. Mary’s?”

  “First thing,” said Lambert.

  Porteous turned to Jane. “You’ll have been more interested in the tombs or the stained glass, I suppose, but there are some extremely subtle things in St. Mary’s. For example, if you compare the length of the nave to that of the choir, you get a ratio of four to three. That’s the equivalent of a musical fourth. The whole place is music if you know how to read the intervals.” After a dreamy pause in which he seemed to be contemplating music only he could hear, Porteous returned the subject at hand. “But I suppose such things are a bit more abstract than the stained glass and the stone carvings.”

  “I’ve always been fond of misericords myself.” Jane risked a simper. She judged that misericords would rank with playing with dolls or cuddling puppies to a man of Porteous’s interests.

  Lambert looked mildly stunned. Jane wondered if her simper was responsible or if Lambert was remembering the architectural lecture she’d given him in St. Mary’s.

  Porteous, it was clear, lived down to Jane’s expectations. “Harrumph. Yes, very droll, some of them. In an obvious way. Quite vulgar, some of the others. Your brother tells me you are a teacher at Greenlaw, Miss Brailsford. Perhaps I ought to say, Dame Brailsford? I believe that is the proper form of address at Greenlaw? What branch of magic is your specialty?”

  “I teach mathematics,” Jane said. “We don’t teach magic directly.”

  Porteous seemed taken aback. “You teach mathematics.”

  “I do,” said Jane briskly. “I find it quite satisfying. You’ve no notion.”

  Porteous chose his words with evident care. “I’m confident you teach your subject most competently, Miss Brailsford, yet if you do not instruct your young charges in the fundamentals of magic, who does?”

  “I cannot generalize. It’s a highly individual matter,” Jane replied. “The curriculum is planned with great care, lest anyone suffer through having their own idiosyncratic talent subsumed into the whole.”

  “Idiosyncratic poppycock,” said Porteous. “If the individual is not subsumed into the whole, where is the power behind the spell to come from? Eh? And for another thing, how do you get the chants to work together if the theory isn’t properly drilled into your students from the very start?”

  “Greenlaw doesn’t use chants the way Glasscastle does,” said Jane.

  “No chants?” Porteous looked horrified. “No chants whatsoever?”

  “Greenlaw operates on its own methods,” Voysey put in smoothly. “I believe there are considerable differences in the theoretical structure of the curriculum.”

  “In other words, what Greenlaw uses as a curriculum is probably full of the sort of modern nonsense you favor,” Porteous retorted. “Never have I known you to subject one of your theories to full formal analysis before you share it with the world. You enjoy shocking people too much to refine a hypothesis.”

  “At least I’m open to the implications of the new work being done. Then again, I’m not considered one of the finest minds of the eighteenth century.” Voysey’s inflection made it clear that he was referring to Porteous.

  “Very droll, dear fellow. You mean that as a joke but I take it as an accolade,” Porteous countered.

  Jane thought it best to bring the subject of the discussion back to magic. “Just as there are considerable differences between men and women, there are considerable differences between the way their magic works. Men must work together, if what I gather from my brother is true. Women must work alone. If magic is to work for either, it must work its own way through us.”

  Voysey smiled. “Vive la différence, eh, Porteous?”

  “Yes, yes. Of course.” Porteous lifted his wineglass to Jane. “The lady is always right. One of those verities of life, eh, Brailsford?”

  For a fleeting but vivid instant, Jane longed to slap the smug expression off Porteous’s face. She caught Lambert’s eye for a moment. With unsettling clarity, she felt he read her impulse exactly and was waiting calmly to see what she would do. There was no hint of disapproval, merely interest and appreciation. Jane couldn’t help feeling nettled. With perfect se
lf-possession, Jane turned to her brother. “The lady is always right. Why have you never learned that particular verity, Robin?”

  Perhaps alerted by something in her tone, Robert regarded her warily. “But I did, my dear. It’s covered in the very first lessons at Glasscastle. If Greenlaw’s classes don’t teach the same material, there’s a flaw in Greenlaw’s curriculum, not in ours.”

  Jane tried to keep the crisp annoyance out of her voice. “Another verity, then. Glasscastle is always right.” She lifted her glass as she made the toast.

  Lambert gave her a speaking look as he raised his glass of water, but maintained his silence. Jane gathered that even in jest, Lambert would not say those words. Or perhaps, Jane thought, Lambert did not consider Glasscastle to be something one jested about.

  Porteous beamed at her. “True, Miss Brailsford. Very true.”

  “If I understand the nature of Greenlaw’s curriculum, and I’m sure you’ll correct me at once if I misstate the matter, Miss Brailsford,” said Voysey affably, “it contrasts with that of Glasscastle in the nature of intelligence. The power of Glasscastle resides in trained intelligence. Mere native intelligence is all very well in its way. Yet the more it can be refined, the greater the source of power.”

  “What do you mean by ‘trained’ and ‘refined’?” asked Jane.

  “Perhaps ‘cultivated’ would be a better word than either,” Voysey replied. “Merely stuffing a student with facts accomplishes nothing. It is the student who learns to question established belief, the student who poses questions of his own, who makes the ideal scholar of magic.”

  “Perhaps Greenlaw and Glasscastle are not so far apart on some points after all,” said Jane. “We don’t look for magic in books either.”

  “There is no royal road to magic. No textbook to follow slavishly. Books may even act as a damper. A distraction, in fact.” Voysey’s enthusiasm was plain.

  Jane thought of the way a whole dormitory of energetic young women, dangerously restless with spring fever, could sometimes be soothed by a suitable three-volume novel. “A very welcome distraction at times.”